Crimson Whispers 3D Render, Digital Artwork by emarukk

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Crimson Whispers

3D Render by emarukk

The Crimson Nest was not named for its interior decor. However, more than one bloodline had been painted on these walls. Certain stains, chemical, proteinic, and ancient, resisted the fiercest industrial solvents available across the Confederation. The place was a living relic, a palimpsest written in the slurred tongues and nervous glances of individuals avoiding letters, syndics, and every rung of a society desperate enough to risk association with Johan Enestam's fragile, metastatic family. It was the midnight shift, but the air throbbed with the raw energy of loud punk rock, the raspy vocals weaving tales of lives marred by misfortune and squandered chances. Drunken talk and laughter filled the bar.

Aygul Gasparyan, better known as Elusive Ghost, entered without dramatics, but her arrival landed with seismic effect. The regulars felt it before their eyes rose; even the thickest-skulled dock rat sensed in her gait a vector of purpose that belonged to neither the criminal underground nor the Confederation Security Bureau but cut a tangent through both, effortlessly and with a deadly, almost maternal mercy. Her dark hair, carefully tied in the fashion of a distant, better-governed world, was offset by the utilitarian matte-black jacket with shoulder patches half-obscured by the stains of travel and contact violence. Her high-heeled boots gleamed. She was a study in cultivated restraint, the promise of threatening hidden beneath the quiet, choreographed movements of her steps.

She caught the first glance from the bar's mainstay, a group of corded forearm laborers elbow-to-elbow in the corner. They registered her and froze their conversation for a beat; a couple of them whispered, and someone's hand moved to a coat pocket, then away. At the far end of the bar, two operators from the Daggerhands Cartel dropped their eyes. They began an ostentatious new topic, but their attention kept looping back, every few seconds, to the ghost passing through their territory. It was as if the room recognized Aygul before she introduced herself, and the recognition was not quite a consensus but rather a collective nervousness.

At the pulse point of this ecosystem, Alianna Melko presided behind the battered bar desk, her characteristic synthesis of calculated conviviality and predatory dominance evident. Melko's hair, shaven from the side but burning like a blue flame of the burner at the other side, was less a fashion statement than a warning to the unwary. This former sailor had discovered her place to stay and family from associates of Crimson Nest.

"Aygul Gasparyan, as I breathe and overcharge!" she cried, her voice filling every dead spot of the room's battered acoustics. "Just in time to toast the late shift's end. Most days, you're as rare here as a sober Syndraka legislator."

She poured twin shots of something clear and volatile into glasses with a practiced, theatrical flourish, sending the first volley down the bar via a two-fingered flick. The glass arrived before Aygul had even signaled, and the implication was clear: tonight, nothing in the Nest would proceed without her say-so.

Aygul took the shot in one motion and let the burn bracket her attention. Melko, never content with surface gestures, leaned across the bar, eyeing Aygul with a shrewd intimacy that would have been flirtation in a less transactional context. "Business or pleasure? And don't say both; I know what passes for fun among your lot."

"Tonight, I'm only here for answers," Aygul replied, setting the empty glass upside down. Her voice was low but not intended for secrecy; she wanted her words to ripple outward, a chemical signal to the others in the room that something significant was about to unfold.

From the side alcove, a sudden bark of laughter from one of the dockhands, metal teeth flashing, left arm trembling with suppressed aggression, interrupted the tension. Alianna raised an eyebrow but let it stand. The Nest was a market of moods, and sometimes, you brokered silence best by letting noise burn out the fuse.

Aygul's eyes moved through the room with clinical precision, logging each face, each set of hands, every minute displacement of anxiety. She measured the air, the faint ozone stink of plasma burns, the subtler notes of old sweat and shame. Next to her, leaning on the bar, she had clocked the presence of Nix, the augmented bruiser whose calibrated optic nerves tracked every outlier in the bar's social order. Nix's gaze was fixed on her with the hunger of a loyal hound and the algorithms of a sentry cannon. His body language was a mix of tension and relaxation, his robotic hand tendering a sweating glass of bright liquid, unsure if he was focusing on his drink or action.

Other presences crowded the constellation of the bar. Most notably, Qiyan Nami and Johan Enestam emerged from the closest booth, heading to the bar desk. They had focused on sharing a private world of words and smoke. Nami, a Qiyan performer imported from the Lezzara circuit, wore the impassive smile of one trained to project calm while dissecting every syllable around her; Enestam, for all his cultivated indolence, was sharp and observing, eyes flicking only rarely to Aygul as if he had already anticipated her angle of approach. Their chemistry was an old song: predator and muse, keeping each other sharp.

And then there was thrall tasked with couriering drinks and, less obviously, gathering intelligence. Thrall moved with the silken fear of someone whose history was mapped in scars; the fresh markings across her neck signaled recent reprogramming, likely punishment for some minor deviation from her employer's expectations. With silent command in her mind, she cut between Nix and Aygul. With trembling hands, she offered the next shot to Aygul. Then she halted in position every thrall was taught while waiting for a new command, her eyes darting from the CSB agent's face to the void where some of her memories had been erased.

Aygul looked at the new face and accepted the glass in a gesture that was both kind and final. "Thank you. They're treating you well?" she asked, voice gentler now. Thralldom was part of the culture; Aygul had grown not to deny it, but she hated to see how badly some Masters treated their servants, whom they were responsible for.

Aimi nodded yes, the answer hardwired, but there was a flicker of something else, an echo of a person who had not always been property. Aygul fixed the girl with a look as searching as a scan. Soon, partial information with the name "Aimi," a salvaged cargo specialist from Cantana, floated in front of her eyes. "You were Out-Ring once. Which station?"

The thrall hesitated; memories were blurred and partial after processing. "Virelia. My father was a dock mechanic. I remember the way he used to." She stopped herself, the learned habit of not sharing too much, especially about memories she had. "But I like the Nest. Mr. Enestam is good to us. People say things, but it's better than the last place."

Aygul's sympathy was not performative, and when she reached out and placed a hand atop Aimi's, the touch was brief yet electric with meaning. "Hold on to that."

Thrall stayed next to her, staring at her like a puppy, big brown eyes full of questions and wonder. The girl was obviously commanded there to be ears and eyes. Only gods knew what was recorded in her memory vaults; she had no access or control. But her face told how she burned to ask questions she didn't dare to say. She radiated the trauma of a person forced into servitude. Loss of freedom, control over her own body, and augmentations were traumas most never recovered from.

"Tell me, Alianna, I need to know more about the exoformed dustball nearby." Aygul leaned close to Alianna; sure, she and thrall both recorded what she said, and Enestam listened in real time. Despite that, it appeared he was high with smoke and Nami. "We had an interesting encounter with Golden Spoon over there. That corrupted bastard is now in our cold storage." She weighed the fact they had arrested Gold Spoon.